Feb 26, 2016

My sweet cousin agreed to let me share her experience with these beautiful children. She is a great writer, photographer, and a woman full of compassion and wisdom. The way she related the experience left me mulling over how I teach my kids and how much they have to teach me. She is spending the better part of 2 years living among the German people, serving them, and teaching them the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of her privileges has been to help the Syrian refugee children that fled to the German nation with their families. From across the world, here is their message.

"I sat on the floor of the refugee home. The kids were becoming
restless and a little bored, and due to their environment, that also
means they start to fight with each other. That is when you see their
previous life flash out; when the punches fly and the anger they have
that has been conditioned to fly out at the slightest threat. My companion and
I walked to the front where we asked for some paper and colored
pencils. With my companion by my side, and a child clinging around each of our
necks, we walked back into the room. I sat on the ground with my pile
of papers and tupperware of pencils and waited as the children noticed
the new objects in the room and started to gather around. These children
only know how to introduce themselves in German, anything else is
beyond their current knowledge, but they have to learn, otherwise they
won't make it here.

Normally the way they get
your attention is by screaming "Hello!!! HELLO!!" And when they want
something they just grab for it, they had to do that where they came
from, it was the only way to get anything. They have brought the mindset
of war into a place of safety.

As the
children grabbed for the paper I held it tight in my hands and had one of the Elders reached his hands out and said, "Bitte?" I handed him a piece of
paper and a pencil and he replied with a, "Danke." The children watched
and for a few of them it clicked, "Bitte?" They would ask and I would
hand them a paper and pencil, which was followed by a "Danke."

Slowly
the crowd thinned as they flopped on the floor with their papers and
pencils in hand. And the younger, shyer ones were left. They would just
stretch their hands out, but I wouldn't give it to them until they would
say Please. Some of the older ones, noticing their struggle to
understand, would turn and explain, in their own language, what would
happen if they said Bitte and Danke. Some even left the room to get
their sibling and walking up told them to say Bitte and then Danke.
Eventually, every child had a piece of paper and I was being
commissioned to draw whatever Disney character was on their shirts.

The
scripture in Matthew 18:3, "And Jesus said, Verily I say unto you,
Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not
enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Or in the Book of Mormon,

"For the
natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and
will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy
Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through
the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive,
meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things
which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth
submit to his father."- Mosiah 3:19

So many times when
explaining the gospel, Christ and his disciples used this analogy; to
become as a little child. This experience, in some way, helped me to
understand why. These children have every excuse not to be kind or
charitable, to stick to their own problems and to never reach out. But,
they didn't. They understand the simplicity of Christ-like behavior in
their youth, they understand the simplicity of reaching out even when
you have been shoved down, pushed out of your country, and in a house of
strung up bed sheet walls.

I think we can all
learn a little something from that. To humble ourselves and become as
little children, ready to teach, ready to help, and to serve."

-Sister Daniella Seare

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I have been somewhat impatient and demanding of my children lately, and certainly have forgotten to keep the spirit of please and thank you, especially when home life is stressful. And, so, I must do as Christ has beckoned us many times... to follow, forgive, and reach out... to become like a little child.

Mission

In a world where you and I get so many messages about what will bring happiness, and how to do this and that with your families...I want to know how to do things from Jesus. Together, lets all come home to Him, who is the way, the truth and the Life. - John 14:6